Horror Movie Review: The Amityville Terror (2016)

The third movie to share some connection with the Amityville story to come out in within a five month period in 2016 is also the sixteenth of the series so far. A colossal amount of films in a franchise, the Amityville series hasn’t produced many quality films & The Amityville Terror doesn’t change that unfortunately.

You can read all our reviews of the series to date below:

1979 – The Amityville Horror
1982 – Amityville II: The Possession
1983 – Amityville 3D
1989 – Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes
1990 – The Amityville Curse
1992 – Amityville: It’s About Time
1993 – Amityville: A New Generation
1996 – Amityville Dollhouse
2005 – The Amityville Horror – Remake
2011 – The Amityville Haunting
2013 – The Amityville Asylum
2015 – Amityville Death House
2015 – The Amityville Playhouse
2016 – Amityville: Vanishing Point
2016 – The Amityville Legacy

Those going in expecting some sort of link to the original film/story are looking in the wrong place. Amityville is a money-making name, that’s it. Most of the series to date can be looked at as stand alone movies in the way Halloween III: Season of the Witch is to the rest of the Halloween series.

There is no point holding this movie & many of the others up against the original. Anyone has free reign to put ‘Amityville’ into their title seeing as it’s the name of a city.

With such a generic title, it’s not surprise that this latest entry is as generic as they come. Knowing its limitations it attempts to distract the viewer with more nudity & more sex then you might expect in an Amityville movie.

From the start, The Amityville Terror drops the ball…hard. Amityville is of course located in Long Island, New York. A place not exactly well known for its mountains & palm trees. The plot surrounds a troubled family that unknowingly move into a ‘cursed’ house in Amityville. It’s not 112 Ocean Avenue nor is it suggested that it is but leaves enough hints/links that it could be a house built on the same ground.

It’s not long before the recovering drug addict starts to experience odd events something that the rest blame as relapsing. The townspeople are coy about the house when asked & the landlord is sinister (or at least that’s what she tries to be).

Eventually the movie dives head-first into possession & the reveal that the entire town is aware of the house’s evil. They keep it ‘contained’ by having people move in & then force them to stay there.

Cue every cliché possible with a glutton of nudity, lacklustre acting, horrible CGI all wrapped up in a completely unmemorable story. Is this the worst of the series so far? No, not even close. It’s just so ‘by the numbers’ that when the credits roll the only thing you’re likely to remember is the nudity!

After an initially interesting start the movie attempts to put the viewer to sleep as it sets up sub-plot after sub-plot that is as generic as you can possible get. Then suddenly, seemingly having bored itself to sleep, it snaps out of it & drops everything for a rushed finale that will leave most scratching their head.

The Amityville Terror is a low budget offering but the CGI effects are some of the worst seen in a long time. So bad that when shown (fire in particular) it completely removes any investment that you might have had. The lack of enthusiasm from everyone involved delivers a wholly unoriginal horror film. One that is as throwaway as humanly possible.

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